What a load of Rubbish

Islington’s Labour-run council had 22,000 complaints about fly-tipping, littering and missed waste collections in just 3 years local Liberal Democrats have revealed.

Last year alone there were 6,361 complaints about dumped rubbish and missed rubbish collections. The majority of the complaints last year related to missed rubbish and recycling collections with over 4,050 complaints. The year 2014/2015 saw an increase in complaints about flying tipping & dumped rubbish, missed rubbish and recycling collections and littering.

Last year’s increase in complaints confirms what residents have been saying across the Borough and via social media about waste collection since the street cleaning and rubbish collection service was brought back in house by the Labour Council.

The figures reinforce local views that dumped rubbish is a big problem in St Mary’s ward in the centre of the borough, with Essex Road and Upper Street being key hot spots, whilst the Leader of the Council’s own ward of Tollington was the worst for fly tipping for two years of the last three years. The area with the highest number of complaints about missed rubbish and recycling collections was Highbury, which has been in the top three areas for complaints for the last three years.

Liberal Democrat politicians have repeatedly raised concerns about rubbish collections and fly-tipping, and have been urging the Council to take urgent action to deal with the problem. The Liberal Democrats revealed only last year that the Council was considering introducing charges for collecting some types of large rubbish and the door to door Green Waste collection was facing the axe. Local Lib Dems warned that this would lead some people to dump rubbish instead - which is exactly what has happened.

At the same time a recent investigation by the Press Association showed that Islington Council had generated £145k from bin fines in recent years, whilst at the same time as complaints went up.

Islington Liberal Democrat Campaigner Nick Manners said:

“There is clearly a big problem with fly-tipping and missed rubbish collections across the borough. The Council leader needs to wake up to what is happening in his own back yard. The Labour-run council must do more to tackle these problems.

The Council should get the basics right, not launching shiny new phone apps to report problems which residents are telling us doesn't work. Even the record number of fines doesn’t seem to be helping to tackle the problem. Cynically residents see this just as another way to extract money out of them, as the problem gets worse”.

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